


Life is Pain, Highness (anyone who says differently is selling something)

by CuivienenGazer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Hand Stomp, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Non-Consensual Touching, Pidge | Katie Holt Whump, Poisoning, Self-Sacrifice, Strangulation, Take me instead, Unwilling Suspension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-07-12 12:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15994799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CuivienenGazer/pseuds/CuivienenGazer
Summary: Prompt fills for my Bad Things Happen Bingo Card. One chapter per prompt. These tend to run away with me so we might see a couple short series spinning off from here.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my whump-crazed ramblings.

**Table of Contents**

  * Take Me Instead (Keith)
  * Tampering With Food/Drink (Pidge)
  * Lifted by the Neck (Pidge)
  * Hand Stomp (Keith)
  * Unwilling Suspension (Hunk and Lance)




	2. Take Me Instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Take Me Instead, featuring Keith.

“I don’t understand.” Keith scowled over Pidge’s shoulder at the device on the counter before them. “What does it _do_?”

Pidge, unwilling to let such mundane things as purpose dim the stars in her eyes, dug out her pouch of GAC. “It’s a _robot_ , Keith, it doesn’t need to do anything _now_ , I’m gonna upgrade it! How much?”

“Three thousand GAC.” The way the alien shopkeeper’s assessing gaze roamed over Pidge gave Keith the heebie-jeebies. He stepped closer, looming behind her.

 “Pidge. You don’t need this robot.”

“Keith.” Pidge did not look up from her wallet. “I need this robot.” Now she did look up at him, and somehow her eyes were bigger, wider, and her face was doing something that made it hard to remember why he had thought the robot was a stupid idea. _Oh._

“Are you… using puppy-dog eyes on me?”

Her eyes got bigger (was that possible? Apparently so), and now he felt guilty for accusing her.

“Is it working? I’m short a couple hundred GAC.”

And just like that, whatever magic was in the puppy eyes was gone. “We’re supposed to be looking for supplies for the castle.”

“With your money! I brought my own. I just need a couple hundred, you know Coran gave you way more than we’ll need. _Please_ , Keith, I _need_ this robot. Look at it! It’s so cute! How can you say no to such a cute-” “Pile of metal?” “ _Keeeiiiith_ ,” she whined, whacking him in the arm. “Pleeeeeeeaaase, Keith?”

Matt probably would have been able to say no. Shiro too, maybe even Lance. They all had experience with younger siblings. But no, they sent Keith, who had no idea how to handle huge eyes and a face full of desperate need for something frankly trivial. He was not prepared for this at all.

Sometimes surrender was the only option. Keith yanked out his wallet and began flipping out GAC. “I’m not helping you fix it.”

“But Keith, you’re my best lab assistant! C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Pidge tucked the robot lovingly under her arm and turned a blindingly bright smile up at Keith.

Keith sighed and shook his head. He had a feeling that he was going to end up helping fix the robot. “C’mon, we need to look for that component-thingy.”

“Flux modulator,” Pidge corrected absently, engrossed in fiddling with the robot. Keith dropped a hand onto her shoulder to steer her through the teeming masses, scowling out from under his bangs at the scurrying aliens who hurried this way, that, and always across the path he was trying to steer Pidge through. Crowds had always been hard for him, but since bonding with Red his instincts tended to go haywire whenever he felt surrounded or not in control.

“Woah,” Pidge muttered, peering up over her glasses as Keith yanked her to a stop just before a horde of tiny orange aliens screeched across the end of the aisle. “Keith, you okay, man?”

“I’m fine,” Keith said tightly. Something was wrong; his instincts were screaming – he needed to fight, run, fly – anything to calm the fire burning down his spine. “Let’s just get the flack mandala” “Flux modulator-” “-and get back to the lions.”

“You got it.” Perhaps picking up on whatever had Keith’s senses firing, Pidge put the robot into her satchel and peered around at the stalls. “Ooh, maybe over there.” She wriggled out from under his hand and darted over to the corner stall.

Something was coming – he couldn’t take it anymore. Keith drew his bayard, glad he had ignored Allura when she ordered them to leave all paladin-identifying gear behind. Screw the flip-flop macerator, he was getting Pidge out of here. They could find it somewhere else.

“Pidge, let’s- PIDGE!” Keith pelted for the alley, heart in his throat. A large green arm had snaked out of the shadows and latched onto the littlest paladin, yanking her out of sight before she could so much as startle at the unexpected contact.

Keith activated his bayard, arriving in a whirl of violence. Five huge aliens blocked his way, while a sixth hauled a struggling Pidge down the alley, heading for a pod parked at the other end. It had her tucked under its’ arm like a ragdoll, one three-clawed hand wrapped entirely around her head, and though Pidge was one of the fiercest people he knew, without her bayard the size disparity was simply too great for her to do more than annoy the hulking alien with her struggles. 

Keith charged, cutting down one of the aliens with a swift slash across its throat before the rest swarmed him. He raised his blade to block an overhead strike, letting the angle of his sword deflect his opponent's blade down and off to one side, before whirling his sword about to parry the next attack. Shoving the blade off of his own, Keith yanked his knife out of its sheath at his back and stabbed blindly to his left, where he could feel a third alien approaching from behind. The alien gurgled and screamed, but kept coming, and the other two were swiftly recovering as well. And all the while Pidge was being hauled toward the pod. Keith glanced about the narrow alley frantically. He needed some sort of advantage; between their size and their numbers, there was no way he was going to take all three down on his own. 

A pile of crates stacked haphazardly against the wall protruded from a mounded pile of discarded trash. Keith yelled and ducked under the rightmost alien's scythe-like weapon and jumped up the mound. His footing was precarious at best, but his back was against a wall now and he was nearly at eye level with his opponents. One swung at him with a heavy-handed overhead strike – really, again? Clearly these guys were not used to actual opposition – and Keith blocked it easily, twisting the blade aside and lunging in to take out the alien’s eyes. Three down, two to go.

The one he had just blinded staggered into one of his remaining opponents, keening loudly, and Keith took the opportunity to leap atop the other one, wrapping his thighs around its’ neck and stabbing downwards through the alien’s skull. He rode the enormous body to the ground, cleaving the last alien from neck to navel on the way down. That left only the blind one, staggering across the alley in futile search of its comrades. Keith took a running start and leapt up its back, using his momentum to bring the disoriented alien crashing to the ground. Stunned, the alien froze as it felt Keith’s blade against its’ neck, cold metal warring with hot blood against its scaly flesh.

“Let her go!” Keith shouted, proud that his voice projected only his anger and not the crippling fear underneath. _Not Pidge, please not Pidge._ “Let her go, or you lose the last of your team!”

The alien halted, its reptilian eyes skittering over the carnage Keith had wrought. Over its clawed hand, Pidge’s enormous brown eyes locked onto Keith’s.

“You have brought blood-debt upon yourself, stranger,” the alien snarled.

“Let her go, and I’ll give you a chance to collect,” Keith retorted. Beneath him, the blinded alien shifted, and he ground his heel harder into its spine until it stilled.

“This small one is a lawful prize, taken fairly. She will bring good price to me.” The alien shook Pidge slightly, and Keith’s gut twisted at the strangled whimper that emerged past the thick scaly claws wrapped around her head. “What have you to offer, stranger? Your blood-debt is already greater than you can pay.”

Everything was speeding up, unlike in battle when time seemed to slow; this was too fast, too much, and all Keith could think was _not Pidge, not Pidge_ in endless, frantic loop.

“Me,” he said, ignoring Pidge’s sudden muffled cy. “Take me.”

The alien snarled. “I have already said your debt is greater than you can pay. I tire of this. Flee, while you still can, before the debt-hunters are given your scent.”

“I’m a paladin!” Keith blurted. “I’m a paladin of Voltron, heard of them?”

The alien’s sudden stillness was answer enough.

“Take me, and I’ll pay your blood-debt. But you have to let her go.”

The alien watched him, reptilian eyes unblinking and hard as stone. Keith stepped off the blinded alien, shifting his sword back into bayard form and sheathing his knife. “Take me,” he repeated. “But let her go.”

“What is she to you?”

“No one,” Keith said quickly – too quickly, damnit. “A messenger,” he tried again, locking eyes with Pidge’s furious honey-gold orbs and hoping that just this once he could communicate what he wanted. “She’s just a messenger. I hired her to carry my stuff while I shopped. She’s an innocent.”

The alien lifted Pidge, eyeing her satchel dubiously. With a single claw, it ripped the satchel down the center, sending the robot and various other wires and connectors they had already purchased clattering to the ground. It glanced back at Keith, gaze lingering on his bayard. Keith thanked whatever gods held sway out here for its distinctive red-and-white coloring. Thanks to Coran’s Voltron shows, most of the galaxy now recognized the paladin colors and bayards. Beside him, the blinded alien rolled over, scrambling to its feet, and Keith stiffened, but kept his bayard disarmed. “Take me,” he repeated. “But let her go.”

Slowly, the alien lowered Pidge to the ground. “Go, child,” it said harshly. “Offer thanks at your hearth this night for the foolish ideals of this paladin.”

“Keith,” Pidge whispered hoarsely. Bruising was already darkening her pale skin, crossing her face in mottled hues that didn’t belong.

“Go on,” Keith said, his mind still circling madly, stuck in its loop of _not Pidge, not Pidge_. “You’ve got a job to get back to.”

“No, I-”

The alien shoved her towards the entrance to the alley when she stayed rooted to the spot. “Run, child. Deliver your messages.”

The giant claws descended on him, then, wrapping around Keith’s torso and pinning his arms painfully to his sides. His bayard clattered on the ground, but the alien’s sinuous tail snaked down to seize it as well.

“Get out of here!” Keith snarled as it began to drag him away. He couldn’t try to escape until Pidge was safely away. She couldn’t start tracking him until she was back at her lion, she wasn’t _safe_ until she was back with Green.

Finally, Pidge fled, dashing tears out of her eyes, and finally, Keith’s panic over her began to subside, even as his own spiked. But Pidge was safe. He could handle whatever came next, as long as it was him and not her.


	3. Tampering With Food/Drink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bingo Square: Tampering with Food/Drink, featuring Pidge.

“Pidge, you _gotta_ try this,” Hunk gushes.

“No.”

“C’mon, just a bite,” he wheedles. “It tastes just like hazelnuts.”

“ _No_ , Hunk.”

"Fine, fine," Hunk relents, and returns to his own plate. But Pidge can feel him watching her out of the corner of his eye.

"What?" she finally snaps - quietly, she can be diplomatic too.

"Nothing!" he says hastily. "I just-" _here we go_ "-are you sure you're ok? I know this was a pretty big let-down."

And suddenly, eating is looking like a better option than talking to Hunk. Pidge grabs a spoonful of whatever this newest alien gunk is on her plate and shoveled it into her mouth, barely tasting the weird flavor. Hazelnuts, her ass. This stuff is nothing like anything on Earth.

Damnit, Hunk is still watching her.

"I'm fine," she says shortly. "It's just a setback. Stop pussyfooting around for once and leave me alone."

"We’ll find them, Pidge," Hunk says steadily, and he's so _warm_ , so fucking _comforting_ that she nearly loses her shit right there and the only alternative is to shove more terrible alien food into her mouth, chew, swallow, and repeat the process until he gets the message and leaves her alone.

And he does, he's damn perceptive, that's what clued him in in the first place, but now she thinks she might have screwed up because he's not gushing about the food anymore, and Lance is shooting her a chastising look before turning to devote his entire attention to Hunk and before long the two of them have excused themselves from this latest banquet with one of their hosts, going to seek out yet another alien sunset, and Pidge can't find the motivation to get up and find them to apologize so she stays, letting the joyful atmosphere batter at her rocky solitude. It's great, really. Another planet liberated, another victory snatched from the Galra's grasping claws, but the air is bitter, like the aftertaste of what Hunk swore was hazelnuts, tainted by Pidge's own personal metric for success or failure. Still no leads on her father and brother. She's been through every scrap of data the Galra on this planet had, every scrap of data from every mission they've been on, and she's no closer to finding her family than when she hunched on the roof of the Garrison, seeking fruitlessly for confirmation of what she knew in her heart, data to back up her bone-deep conviction that her family was alive, _somewhere_. It's been over a year since she left that lost, lonely little girl behind on the roof, and she's got jack-shit to show for it.

Suddenly it's all too much and not enough, too much input and not enough distance and she shoves her chair back to desert the banquet abruptly, ignoring Allura's disapproval. The coalition can go fuck themselves, because if they can't help her find her family then what good are they? Besides, these aliens seem a little _too_ interested in the paladins and their bond with the lions. She’s had to fend off one too many questions that probe just a little too deep, are a little too personal to her connection with Green.

Distantly, she's aware that this is just frustration and too little sleep on top of an extended adrenaline crash on top of more than a year of tension and doubt speaking, but in this moment it feels much better to let anger course through her hot and swift, buoying her with a feeling of power and force which that distant part of her knows will fade to cold ash all too quickly.

The corridors in this place are all curved, echoes of the buildings' outer walls, and it's all very lovely from the air but she can't seem to find a straight line to her lion for the life of her and right now all she needs is Green, her cool analytics and rational processes which will bring Pidge back to the mindspace in which she's at her best. She's not the most well-versed in dealing with emotions, others' or her own, and so when everything crashes over her like it has tonight she's often at a loss in how to break free of vicious emotional currents that can't be explained or sorted or put away.

She needs Green. She needs her fucking lion, like, yesterday. It's getting harder to breathe, and these damn curvy corridors are fucking with her depth perception and that distant part of her is piping up _again_ , is this a panic attack? Physical symptoms are similar – elevated heartrate and shortness of breath colliding to produce dizziness, her temperature perception is off, it's hot and then cold, _shit_ here comes nausea. Not a panic attack, then, her analysis provides helpfully. Probably poison. Something about that banquet wasn't safe for human consumption. Fucking hazelnuts.

"Green," she whispers, curling over herself as she finds stability against the wall. She's got an emetic in her first-aid kit, if she could just get to her lion. But she's lost, now, she thinks she was headed the right direction when she left the banquet hall but everything is spinning and she's not even sure if she's crouched on the floor or lying on the wall. Maybe the gravity is switching up on her? No, she's just falling, sliding down the wall to land on her ass and even that's not good enough because her traitorous spine is curving, bending to deposit her aching head on the floor and maybe she should just sleep this off. That sounds like a great idea, actually, until her analytic side screams at her to get up, keep moving, _find someone_ because if she goes to sleep she might die and that gives her enough of a push to roll over and try to get her legs underneath her once more.

She manages to get to her knees, but she keeps tipping forward when she tries to clamber to her feet so she opts to crawl. She leans against the wall as she creeps forwards, using it to remind her of what equilibrium should feel like because she sure as shit can’t keep it straight for herself. Her vision is greying out, pulsing in time with the nausea in her gut, and her lungs keep squeezing tighter and tighter. Where is everyone? Why hasn’t she come across _anyone_? Oh god, the last thing she said to Hunk was so shitty. She can’t remember what she said to any of the others, but it probably wasn’t anything more than civil, if that. If she can make it through this she’ll be nicer. And she’ll put together a food testing kit for each of the paladins. Really, it’s a miracle none of them have accidentally ingested something fatal before now. Green, where’s Green? She needs Green.

A pair of feet enter her appallingly narrow field of vision, standing firm and upright with annoying ease. She sinks back to a hunched, seated lean against the wall, using its stolid support to tip her pounding head up until she meets the gaze of one of the aliens hosting them. What are they called again?

“He…lp,” she manages to rasp out.

The alien watches her for a minute, while Pidge’s vision tunnels further, grey leaching inwards inexorably while her ribs squeeze tighter and tighter against her lungs. He’s not going to do anything, she realizes. He’s just going to stand there and watch her die. Maybe they think if Voltron loses a paladin while on their planet that one of their own will be chosen. Maybe they’re secretly still in league with the Galra. But that doesn’t make sense. She can’t think well without oxygen, apparently.

Pidge tips herself backwards, ready to worm-crawl away from the alien who’s _still_ watching her if that’s what it will take, but the sudden shift in her center of gravity proves to be too much for her overstrained system, and blackness crashes in to take her.

*

When she wakes, she’s strapped to a table, and the spike in the heart monitor they’ve put on her wipes out any chance she had of faking unconsciousness in order to evaluate the situation.

With subtlety off the menu, Pidge opts for belligerence. “What the fuck are you idiots doing?” she demands, testing the straps they’ve put on her while they’re hopefully distracted by her running her mouth. “I’m a Paladin of Voltron. We literally just saved your _entire planet_ from the Galra. Let me go, before this goes further than you can smooth over with an apology.”

The alien ignores her, instead reaching across Pidge to pull a contraption that resembles a cross between a dentist’s mobile x-ray machine and an optometrist’s phoropter over her torso. It’s getting harder to push her fear aside, and the adrenaline from her awakening has worn off, leaving her drained and empty. Pidge casts her mind out for Green, pulling desperately on the tenuous thread of their connection. It’s hard to marshal the focus necessary to connect with her lion; she’s still feeling the effects of whatever it was that she ate, nausea and dizziness and tight lungs all conspiring to muddy her thoughts and dull her mind.

The alien finishes his preparations and peers around the edge of the machine at her. “We have asked your princess to explain to us the bond between paladin and lion, and we have sought the same answers from each of you, but you will not share this knowledge with us, and we are forced to take what should have been freely given. This is your last chance to elucidate the bond to us.”

“Why do you want to know?” Pidge demands. “Voltron saved your planet.” She pauses to fight the nausea and try to breathe. It’s getting harder, and she feels a pale, petty satisfaction at the thought that they probably won’t get to study her as much as they want if she continues to deteriorate at this rate. “This is pretty shitty thanks,” she manages, “to kidnap someone who just risked life and limb for your people.”

While she talks, she’s still reaching for Green, pushing past everything that hurts to bridge the distance between and her and her lion. Dimly, she feels the connection snap into place even as her vision greys out further, and the alien’s retort washes over her in a jumble of indecipherable sound. But even as her body is failing her, Green’s presence surges through her mind, lending clarity where she can’t marshal her own, analyzing the situation with her while sending a constant flow of assurance that she’s on her way. Pidge tunes the alien out, cataloguing her symptoms for Green, helping her lion assemble them into a file for the rest of her team when they arrive. She’s pretty sure she won’t be up to explaining anything herself.

**Cause:** high probability of ingestion of a substance toxic to human biology, likely at the feast.

**Symptoms:** gradual onset of shortness of breath, leading to elevated heartrate, approximately fifteen doboshes after beginning ingestion of the suspected substance. _Note to Hunk: that stuff did not taste like hazelnuts._ A sample should be obtained for analysis and synthesis of an antidote.

_Shit they’re drawing blood – no, Green, keep the file going_.

**Symptoms, continued:** Dizziness presented next, though whether an effect of the substance or a result of previous symptoms undetermined. Nausea began soon after. Seems resistant to actual emesis, however. Suggestion: try inducing emesis to evacuate whatever’s still in my stomach. Vision is greying out, progressing steadily towards complete loss of sight. Symptoms combined lead to pervasive muscle weakness, inability to stand. Oh, and balance is affected as well.

_What was that?_ Pidge snaps out of her compilation of the file for Green at the trembling of the room around her. _Oh_. It’s Green. The room shakes harder, sending instruments rattling off of trays and sending her captors into a babbling frenzy. Pidge hears Lance’s blaster and Hunk’s shoulder cannon going off, and beyond that the crashing that usually results when Keith and Shiro start throwing people around.

It all erupts at once, Green breaking through the wall while the team charges through the door on the other side and subdue the aliens that managed to keep their feet in the shower of rubble. Something glances off of Pidge’s ribs, and a smaller spray of sharp rocks skates across her face. She closes her eyes, since she can’t see anymore anyway.

“Pidge, oh my god, Pidge, wake up!” It’s Hunk. She hears his bayard dematerialize and then his hands are cupping her face, fingers tapping gently while someone else fumbles at the straps around her wrists. Cold fingers – Lance. Someone else is taking the vein tap out of her arm – Keith?

“’M here,” she mumbles. Her oxygen shortage is starting to worry her. “Poi..s’n, Hunk,” she twitches her hand to tap at his. “File. In Green.” She has to stop, take a minute to try to breathe, while he lifts her, cradling her against his big warm chest like a baby and she can’t even find it in herself to be annoyed by the position. It’s nice, this time.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he rushes. “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll get you a pod, just stay with me.”

Oh, pod. Probably not going to work. “Not… pod. Poison,” she manages. “File. In Green.” They’re heading up. Sounds like a ramp. Green? Oh, there she is.

“Yeah, we’re in Green. She’s letting Shiro fly her back to the castle. We’re almost there, hang on.”

“No… Hunk. File. In Green.” How many times does she have to say this? She’s wasting precious oxygen.

“What file?” Lance picks up on it. “There’s a file here in Green?”

Speaking is too much, now, so she tips her head forward against Hunk’s chest and it must be enough because she hears Lance tapping through Green’s logs. Pidge nudges at Green to bring Pidge’s log to the forefront of the system display.

“Poi…son,” she manages one more time, and now she really needs to focus on breathing so they’re just going to have to figure the rest out for themselves.

“ _Dios_ ,” Lance breathes. “It was the food. That hazelnut stuff.”

Finally.

“Oh, god,” Hunk moans. “You and I both ate some too, Lance, why aren’t we sick?”

“You’re bigger than her,” Keith observes. “And you both only ate a little. Pidge ate a bunch.”

Gee, thanks, Keith. Way to call out a girl on her eating habits.

“We can’t use the pods,” Shiro realizes. “They don’t work on illnesses, and this is too close to a disease.”

“She says we’ll need a sample for an antidote,” Lance continues.

“I’ll go get it,” Keith says darkly, and Pidge has a sudden vision of him stomping through the curved halls, fighting his way through their former allies (because she’ll be damned if they let this particular planet join the coalition after this) in a quest for hazelnut gunk. The thought forces a huff of a laugh out past her laboring lungs, but that was a bad idea because now she’s choking, fighting to get back the air she just lost. Hunk adjusts her position against him, his large hand rubbing circles on her back, and it helps a little but she’s still panting for air, blind and achy and dizzy and nauseous and unable to throw up and she just really hates this so much.

Green touches down in the castle’s hangar, and even though she can’t see she feels it when Hunk stands and everything spins wretchedly.

“Keith, wait, Keith-” it’s Lance, chasing after the red paladin, judging by the sound of his rapid-fire footsteps. “ _Wait,_ Keith, _Dios, idiota_ , I’ve got some of the hazelnut gunk!”

“What?” everyone choruses, and Pidge would join in, too, if she could. How the _hell_ did he pull that off?

“It really does taste like hazelnuts,” he says apologetically. “I only tasted a little bit, but we’ve got that space cocoa, and I was hoping we could make something like Nutella, but now that’s seeming like a really bad idea-”

“I could kiss you right now, Lance,” Hunk half-sobs. “Bring it to the medbay, quick.”

Pidge loses track of things for a little while after that. She focuses on trying to breathe, on the too-slow intake of oxygen, trying to keep as much of it as she can when every exhale seems to add to the tightness squeezing her lungs further closed.

Something covers her nose and mouth, and she panics for a moment until oxygen rushes in, and she’s never felt so grateful for anything in her life. She gulps it greedily while Hunk and Coran discuss her over her head, using the file from Green and the sample Lance kept to synthesize an antidote.

She loses a bit more time, awash in dizzy nausea and unable to see beyond the field of grey that encompasses everything when she bothers to open her eyes. The oxygen is helping, but it’s still hard to breathe and harder to think, so she drifts until something pricks her arm and slowly, so slowly, she feels the relief creep through her body. The nausea is the first to settle, then the dizziness, and then her lungs ease while her sight fades back in.

Hunk is leaning over her, his smile watery and wavery but still there, and Coran hovers at her other elbow, adjusting the flow from the bag of antidote that’s hooked up to the needle in her arm. Everyone else is at the foot of the bed, Lance and Keith and even Shiro and Allura, and they’re not her family by blood or by name but damnit if they haven’t shoved their way into her heart anyway. Her space family is weird and most of the time she doesn’t appreciate them nearly enough, but they’re still here for her, even when she fucks up.

And speaking of which – “Hunk,” she says, rejoicing in the feel of breath flowing freely in and out of her lungs. “I was a major jerk at the banquet. I’m sorry, man.”

“Don’t even worry about it,” Hunk sniffs. “I already forgot. You were just upset, I get it.”

“Good,” Pidge breathes, feeling her eyes slip closed again. Being poisoned really takes it out of her, apparently.

“Rest, Number Five,” Coran says. “You’ve got some recovery to come, still. That substance was quite toxic to your system.”

That sounds fun. But the first part was good. She’ll take a nap. And when she’s feeling better, she’ll make those food-testing kits for everyone.


	4. Lifted By the Neck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: lifted by the neck, with Pidge

Most of the time, Pidge was proud of her projects. Most of the time they were pretty useful, if she did say so herself – in fact she could say without exaggeration that she had been integral to the war effort on many occasions. Rover, her trash babies, countless algorithms and programs, Green’s cloaking mechanism, yeah, yeah, and more. Most of the time Pidge would stand by everything she put her mind or hands to.

Of course, there were a few, teeny, tiny isolated incidents where a project did not turn out as she planned. Not that it was ever anything she couldn’t fix, of course. Just… an unexpected detour on what should have been a straight road to success. And most of the time, all such bumps meant were a few more hours on whichever project it was, or another night avoiding Shiro’s obsessive check-ins to make sure she was getting enough rest. And then, tah-dah, problem solved! Project completed, on to the next!

Most of the time. Occasionally, something would interrupt her (heresy) and she would be forced to put her work aside to go save the universe or some such shit.

Of course, because karma was a two-faced bitch and Pidge had it coming, just such an occasion arose _right_ after she hit a snag in her attempt to upgrade Green’s translator tech. And of course, they had to stop off on a planet to search for supplies before she could fix it. And _of course_ , because her translator was the only one that wasn’t working as it was supposed to (and okay, she would admit to that being her fault), she ended up separated from her team and captured by a bunch of aliens who had never seen anything remotely like a human before.

The thing was, Pidge’s translator wasn’t broken _completely_. She could understand what the weird, blobby, slimy, cephalopod-like aliens were saying. It was just that she couldn’t make _them_ understand _her_. So as they held her in their myriad odorous tentacles (and _ooh,_ she had hated sushi even before this, but now she’d be quiznacked if she ever even looked at a fish again, let alone smelled or tasted one), she was unfortunately and intimately privy to the thought process that went into her forced examination.

“What is it?”

“So strange.”

“What are these appendages for?”

A tentacle slid across her foot, exploring the join between boot and ankle, sliding under the edge of her undersuit to chase chills across bare skin.

“Look, it wears fabric atop the body.”

“Why?”

“What could be underneath, that it covers so much of itself?”

Alright, that was enough. Pidge squirmed, letting the slick secretion oozing across her grease her escape attempt until she popped free to clatter to the floor. She slapped a hand to her comms as she sloshed through the ankle-deep muck, evading pursuing tentacles. Her bayard was resting against a protruding root several meters away, knocked out of her grip when they had first seized her. “Allura, come in!” she had been the closest, when they split up upon landing to search for resources for their trip back to Earth. “Lance, Keith, Hunk, anyone! Come in, damnit!”

A tentacle snaked across her wrist, another around her waist, and they had her again.

“It makes so much noise.”

“Annoying.”

“Up there, at the top. It makes the noise from behind this obstruction.” And then there was a tentacle sliding across her visor, blocking her view of the swamp even as it _squeezed_ , trying to pry her helmet off of her head. She didn’t have more than a tick or two, if that. “Guys! I need an extraction, asap!” With a click, the catch engaged and her helmet popped free. The aliens explored it thoroughly, tentacles poking and sliding into every crevice and cranny, and Pidge fought back a sob at the sight. She was next, if she couldn’t get her act together and get out of this.

They were holding her tighter, this time. She could feel the bones in her wrists and ankles grinding against each other, even as her ribs creaked with every labored breath.

“Odd, very odd.”

“So hard. Not pliable at all.”

“This appears to be its’ center of functionality.”

“Does it have thought, I wonder?”

“Yes,” Pidge choked out. “I’m sentient, I’m alive, let me go!”

It was useless, of course. The aliens could no more understand her than she could a plant. They continued to explore, tentacles winding through her hair, around her arms and legs, bending and moving them without her consent. She groaned as one tried to pull her arm up behind her back at an angle it was not meant for.

On the ground, her helmet crackled faintly, battling distance and partial submersion in the muck of the swamp to deliver static and fragmented words.

“-idge- -roceedin- -ast -ocatio- get a lock - armor?”

Yes, track her armor, that was it. Pidge clamped her mouth shut as one of the aliens stroked a tentacle across her face, exploring the join between her lips.

_Hurry, please hurry._

It wasn’t long, really, the span of time between her helmet’s first squawking attempt at communication and Allura’s arrival, but every moment of it was stretched to its utter breaking point by the alien’s invasive examination. By the time Allura leapt through the bushes, brandishing her bayard-whip with a fearsome battle-cry, they had cracked Pidge’s chest-plate down the center and tossed it aside, along with both of her greaves and one of her boots.

Pidge’s legs dropped as Allura took down the nearest alien. One of the others let go of her waist, moving to battle the Altean princess, leaving Pidge hanging from the last alien’s tentacles, wrapped firmly around her neck. She wheezed, struggling to grip the rubbery appendage strangling her, but the slimy skin gave her no purchase.

Through darkening vision she saw Allura dispatch the second alien and stalk closer, her whip crackling in vengeant fury. The alien tightened its grip on Pidge’s neck, holding her close to its blubbery body.

“My pod,” it wailed. “You have killed my pod! What did we do to offend you, interloper?”

“You were assaulting my teammate – you continue to do so!” Allura cried. “Let her go, immediately!”

Pidge choked, gasping for air that would not come. She couldn’t feel her hands or feet anymore. Allura was a blurred cloud of pink and white, hovering just out of reach. Dimly, she heard the alien protesting as it retreated, ineffectually trying to keep a safe distance from the princess.

“It did not communicate with us! We did not know it was yours, interloper! We were merely trying to discern what it is!”

“She,” Allura ground out, “is my teammate, and you are killing her, holding her by the neck like that! If she dies, I will rain fire and ash upon the entirety of your planet. Now let her _go_!”

“Spare us, spare us!” the alien cringed, lifting Pidge as if in offering above its head. “Take it and go, interloper! We will not approach you or your pod again!”

Bones ground in Pidge’s neck, sending white flares of pain up into her skull and down her spine. Her ears rang mercilessly. Suddenly, she was falling, then crashing into the hard panes of Allura’s armor. Pidge dragged in deep, rasping gasps, wrapping trembling fingers around the edge of Allura’s armor. The princess’ arms wrapped firmly around her, cradling her close, but Allura’s embrace was nothing like the boneless constriction of the alien’s tentacles. Pidge breathed deeply, letting the faintly floral scent Allura wore ground her and push the memory of her ordeal away from the forefront of her mind.

“It’s gone, it’s gone, it fled,” Allura soothed, sinking down onto a fallen log and adjusting Pidge in her arms, moving a hand to stabilize the back of her neck. “Pidge, I am so sorry, we should never have split up on an unfamiliar planet. Deep breaths, that’s good. Does it hurt to move your neck?”

Everything hurt, but Pidge knew what Allura was checking for. Carefully, she rotated her head a fraction at a time in each direction before daring to slowly shake her head.

“I think it’s okay,” she rasped. “Thanks, Allura. For saving me. My translator was offline, I couldn’t get them to understand me.”

“Oh Pidge.” Allura’s hand moved off her neck to rub soothing strokes up and down Pidge’s back. “I am so sorry you had to go through that. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

“No, I don’t think so. Some bruises, that’s it.”

And memories that would likely haunt her dreams for weeks to come, but it wasn’t like Pidge needed a lot of sleep anyway. She could handle it.

“Al-ra, -ome in, di- -ind Pidge?” Allura’s comms crackled to life.

“Keith, I found her,” she reported. “We are returning to the lions now. Tell Coran to have his salve for bruises ready, but we won’t need the pod.” She glanced at Pidge, double-checking the last statement, and Pidge nodded.

“Roger -at, over and ou-.”

Allura shifted, preparing to stand, and Pidge tensed, glancing down at her bare foot. Slogging the two miles or so back to the lions through swampy terrain was going to be _so_ much fun. But Allura didn’t put her down, instead setting her on the log.

“Alright, up you get,” she said briskly, crouching in front of Pidge with her back turned.

Pidge eyed the princess incredulously. “Are you… offering me a piggy-back ride?” she rasped doubtfully.

Allura glanced over her shoulder at her, eyes bright with suppressed mirth. “I believe this is the appropriate mounting position, yes?”

Fuck it, Pidge was sore. She had been strangled by aliens. And she only had one shoe. She clambered onto Allura’s back, latching her arms loosely across the princess’ chest-plate and resting her chin in the soft join between Allura’s shoulder plate and neck guard.

“Thanks, Allura.”

“Anytime, Pidge.”


	5. Hand Stomp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bingo Square: Hand Stomp, featuring Keith.

Keith knew loss. Its’ touch preceded even his lucid memories, slipping through the door left ajar by his mother’s departure. It crept closer in the wake of the fire which took his father, and solidified its presence with every return to the social service offices because another family hadn’t quite been able to make him fit.

It had wrapped cold, intimate fingers around his heart when Shiro had boarded the Kerberos craft, and it had squeezed, shredding and ripping into him, when the mission was declared a failure. Then it had settled, coiling deep into his bones and chilling him through the hot, dusty days in the desert.

He had driven it away when Shiro returned, beating it back into a gentle, incessant _what if_ by sticking to Shiro like a limpet, training long hours and throwing himself into bonding exercises with Red or formation practice with Voltron in single-minded intensity that left no room for _what if_. But loss had been his bedfellow for too long to ignore the abundant fodder of war.

So he shouldn’t have been surprised, when Red’s touch stilled and faded to darkness as Zarkon blasted her across the hull of his central command. He shouldn’t have ached, watching Black being pushed through the wormhole by the other lions while Shiro’s screams tore through his comms. But he was, and he did. Beyond the burn of his ribs and the scouring fire in his bones from augmenting Red’s reserves with his own spirit, Keith _ached_ as the wormhole blinked closed.

And there, pinned under the wreckage of Red’s console, Keith met loss in corporeal form as Zarkon peeled Red’s hull apart. In the deeps of their bond, Red’s unconscious agony resounded in thin and terrible counterpoint to his own at the deathly cacophony created by Zarkon’s invasion of his lion.

“Did you see them go, Red Paladin?” The Galran emperor stalked into the cockpit, head tilted to clear the ceiling. “Your team has abandoned you, little ember.”

Keith ignored him, straining against the warped metal and melted glass trapping him. If he could just reach his bayard-

Zarkon plucked the red and white weapon from its slot in the console and tucked it away into his armor. He ran coldly evaluating eyes over Keith, watching him struggle.

“The red lion has ever been Voltron’s right hand,” he mused aloud. “It is the place of any leader to measure his subordinates. I measured Alfor, and I found him wanting. And now, little ember, I have measured you.” Abruptly, he was close _too close_ , leaning over Keith’s pinned form to grasp his head in one gargantuan hand. Keith’s helmet cracked, shattering against his head and raining glass across his face as Zarkon squeezed. He shut his eyes against the projectile rain, feeling the tips of Zarkon’s claws adorn his brow in a macabre diadem of blood.

“Little ember, you have been weighed, and measured,” Zarkon crooned. “And you are not enough.” His hand shifted to Keith’s chestplate, while the other wrapped around the twisted metal pinning Keith in place, and peeled it back. Keith groaned as metal slid out of the seat beneath him and up through the meat of his thighs. Blood, held in check by the pressure that had immobilized him, now sheeted down his legs with mortal abandon.

“You are no right hand of Voltron,” Zarkon finished, lifting Keith out of the pilot’s chair and dragging him across the cockpit. “You usurp the title of Red Paladin, and will face my judgment.”

“The black lion picked Shiro,” Keith wheezed, clawing instinctively, ineffectually, at the thick arm wrapped across his chest. “It rejected you – Voltron measured you, and you’re the one found wanting.”

Zarkon’s claws pierced his chest and back as the Galran emperor squeezed Keith in his grip. They stepped out of the mangled lion and into the central ship before the emperor replied.

“Little one,” he said finally, his tone a somber cadence to his measured tread through the halls of his ship. “Voltron was mine once and will be again. I was ancient before Voltron. I have watched the birth of stars, and I have witnessed those same stars die. You and the rest of your ragtag group, like those paltry few systems which still oppose me, are nothing more than children throwing a tantrum, thinking that histrionics and drama will get them their way.”

Tall double doors slid open before them, and Keith flinched from the wall of noise. Galra generals of all shapes and sizes clustered in the great hall, clearing a path for Zarkon’s entrance as they cheered for him and screamed at Keith in equal measure.

Zarkon stalked up the length of the hall, pausing at the foot of the dais to turn and face the assembly. The gathered generals silenced swiftly, their anticipation hanging thick and cloying in the recycled air. Blood dripped, swift and steady, to puddle at Zarkon’s feet. Keith took the moment to breath through the pain of the gaping wounds in his legs, the holes in his torso, his head. This was just the beginning, and he was determined that whatever Zarkon claimed, he would end this as befitted a Paladin of Voltron.

Zarkon’s gaze drifted across the crowd, gathering every scrap of their attention.

“My loyal subjects,” he began, “today we have witnessed Voltron’s latest act of chaos and defiance. They have dared attack me in my home, and though it suited my purposes to allow them to flee in cowardly defeat, I will no longer allow their posturing without a token of my disfavor.”

Amid the cheers that erupted, two drones clanked forward to take Keith from Zarkon’s grip and hoist him high by each arm, until he hung suspended for all to see.

“Behold!” Zarkon announced. “The Red Paladin, Voltron’s right hand. The red lion even now lies imprisoned in my vaults. But for its pilot, my justice will be more immediate.”

Keith reeled under the wall of sound, straining to pull air into lungs pulled tight by his suspended position. Dimly, he watched two more drones approach, bearing thick metal cuffs. They attached one to each wrist, and then to Keith’s brief confusion, the first two set him on the ground. He staggered, his shredded legs unwilling to bear his weight, and then the cuffs activated, magnets dragging his hands to predetermined points on the floor at the foot of the dais. Keith slammed face-first into the cold metal floor, his arms stretched out spread-eagled. Zarkon’s heavy tread echoed against the shell of his ear, stopping with dread finality next to his right hand.

“Voltron’s right hand is a position of honor, of trust,” he said softly. “You, little ember, are not worthy.” Raising his voice, he addressed the assembly once more. “As with Voltron, so to paladin. Voltron has lost its right hand.” He raised his boot, bringing down to thunderous acclaim upon Keith’s right hand. Keith strangled his scream, allowing only a hoarse groan to escape as he felt bones snap and twist, sharp ends digging into his flesh as the Galran emperor ground his heel into the back of Keith’s hand.

“As with Voltron, so to paladin,” Zarkon repeated, removing his boot and mounting the dais to take his throne. “My loyal generals, I invite you to partake of my justice.”

The Galra needed no more invitation. In eager brutality, the first general stalked forward, leering down at Keith. “Death to the enemies of the Galra,” he spat, bringing his booted heel down upon Keith’s hand. Keith sucked in a sharp gasp, feeling two fingers snap. The general spun on his heel, leaving a parting gift of spittle on Keith’s face before rejoining his place in the ranks.

The next general leapt in the air with a shrill battle-cry to land two-footed on Keith’s hand. Keith breathed through the pain, feeling his last intact fingers snap.

The next stomp broke open the skin, tearing a gash across the back of his hand from the spikes embedded in the third general’s boot.

After the fifth stomp, his hand started to lose shape.

After the ninth, Keith couldn’t move his fingers. His other limbs twitched spasmodically with each stomp, garnering jeering laughter from the Galra generals, but his hand had stopped responding beyond a constant, white-hot scream roaring up his nerve endings and begging his mouth for release. He clamped his lips shut, refusing to give them the final satisfaction of hearing him beg.

Keith fixed his gaze on his hand, watching skin break and bleed, feeling bones grind and shatter as general after general brought one or both feet down upon the mangled lump of flesh that used to be his sword hand. Blood collected in the hollows of his skin, even as more seeped from his legs and torso.

By the fifteenth stomp, Keith’s blood had pooled underneath the entirety of his body. The generals had to step in it to get at his hand, now, and their departing footsteps left spiraling record of their visitations.

By the twenty-sixth stomp, Keith’s hearing and vision were greying out. The world buzzed distantly under clear and present pain.

By the thirty-ninth stomp, Keith couldn’t feel anything anymore. He watched, dimly surprised that he was still awake, as feet descended on something that had once meant something to him.

Sometime between the forty-third and forty-seventh stomp, Keith started to slip.

It might have been after the fifty-second stomp that he lost count, but at that point he wasn’t sure.

It might have been sixty-eight stomps when his eyes slid closed, but no one was counting anymore.


	6. Unwilling Suspension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bingo prompt: Unwilling Suspension, featuring Hunk and Lance.

“Hunk, buddy, _please_.”

Lance is upset. Why? …oh, maybe because Hunk’s head feels like a watermelon with too many rubber bands around it. Had they been daring each other to raid Coran’s nunvil stash again? He thought they swore never again last time, but hey. You never know what Lance might get bored enough to try. Again.

“ _Hunk_ ,” Lance’s voice cracks, fear leaking through. Hm, maybe not nunvil then. What _had_ they been doing?

The avalanche of memory crashes over him, and Hunk jerks, flailing desperately to the rushing flood of _get away get away_ and _fight flee run fly_ and _oh, god, Lance_ -

“Hunk- Hun- ng-stop – _asere_ , calm dow-nng – you gotta hold – haaa – still, buddy, _basta_ , _por favor_ , just -mmng-”

He’s not sure how, but he wrestles his adrenaline under control, _breathe in-hold-breathe out_ and stills his body. His mind may still be whirring in circles like Rover after Pidge fed him some whacked-out code, but Lance stops making those awful, awful gagging noises.

Okay, take inventory.

First off, he can’t see. There’s something tight and sticky stretched across his eyes. The galran equivalent of duct-tape, maybe?

Second: he can’t move much; probably some sort of restraints, given the fragmented violence of his last waking moments. His arms are hoisted up above his head, not so much that he’s hanging by them, but definitely held up against some sort of pole. He’s standing, his back pressed to the same pole and secured by a band across his chest, and his earlier flailing established that his feet are locked down by some sort of fetters around his ankles, most likely attached to the pole also.

Third: he hurts. Mostly in his head, which is reasonable. The galra guard who knocked him out after he and Lance jumped to Pidge’s defense was way too enthusiastic.

Fourth: Lance is here – oh god, _Lance_. Okay, time to get to the bottom of their situation right-freaking-now, because he doesn’t want to hear Lance make those noises ever again, and he has a sneaking, horrible suspicion that if he moves he will cause exactly that.

“You with me, _asere_?” Lance asks softly, a gentle rasp to his voice that has Hunk’s chest twisting guilt and fear up into his throat.

He wrestles it down. “I’m with you, man. What’s going on? Are you okay? Where are we?”

“We’re still on Zethrid and Ezor’s battlecruiser,” Lance says. “ _En una_ \- in a different cell. They’ve- we’re kind of… _atado_? Um. Tied up.”

Hunk listens to the way Lance can’t quite keep his voice steady, hears the stress in the way his English is slipping.

“Okay, okay, we’re okay,” Hunk nods a little to himself. “We _are_ okay, right Lance? Are you hurt?” He didn’t miss the way Lance avoided the question the first time he asked.

“All good over here, buddy,” Lance says tightly. “Just hanging out in a galra cell, no biggie.”

“ _Lance_.” But Hunk doesn’t get the chance to pry further because the door bangs open and both he and Lance yelp a little into the cacophony of metal and booted footsteps entering their cell.

“Hi, paladins!” says someone _much_ too pleased with themselves. “I’m so glad you both finally woke up! How do you like your new cell?”

“Oh, it’s _peachy_ , Ezor,” Lance snarks. “But I’m disappointed with the level of service; I mean, who doesn’t leave a mint on the torture device? I give it two stars, max.”

They need to get out of here, like, yesterday. He wiggles a little bit, confirming that yes, their armor has been removed and he’s just in the undersuit. So much for accessing his bayard. But Coran’s still out there somewhere (hopefully). He’ll get the others free, and then they can all come charging to the rescue. He and Lance just have to hold out until then. Right? Right. Oh, god.

“Let’s play a game,” Ezor chirps, oblivious to Hunk’s inner monologue. “I’ll ask you questions, and if you answer nicely, I’ll loosen your restraints. If you don’t answer, or if you’re rude, I’ll tighten them. Ready?”

Hunk can’t see if Lance answers without words, but his best friend has gone suspiciously silent. Unsure if this is a cue to pick up the slack but figuring it’s probably best to have Lance’s back by following along, he holds his tongue too.

Fortunately, Ezor doesn’t seem to take their silence as breaking the rules of the game yet, because Hunk doesn’t feel any movement from his restraints, and Lance’s breathing hasn’t changed pitch or pace.

“Alright,” Ezor says after a moment. “Question one for you, Red Paladin. Where is Lotor?”

Usually this would be where Lance snarks something at their captor, but he has been suspiciously silent since Ezor explained the rules of whatever twisted game this is, and he continues to keep silent now, ratcheting Hunk’s anxiety up another notch or two. What does he see, that is succeeding in keeping his usual bravado at bay?

After a long moment, Ezor sighs. “I thought you were the annoying one,” she says disappointedly. “I was looking forward to some proper banter for once. Your concern for your friend is so _boring_ , and so useless.”

Something clanks, then clanks again, and Lance grunts softly. Is Hunk imagining it, or is his breathing a little strained? He holds very still, feeling fear crawl sick and clinging up his spine.

“Your turn, Yellow Paladin!” Ezor announces _right next_ to his ear, and Hunk jumps a little, flinching away from the too-bright voice. Ezor snickers.

“How did you get out of the quintessence field, hm?”

Hunk shakes his head mutely, following Lance’s lead for now.

“Aww,” Ezor pouts. “No fun either.”

Another, slightly different clank, and the floor drops about an inch or so under Hunk’s feet. He lurches down the pole, which yanks his arms a little higher over his head.

Lance gags, and Hunk _knows_.

“You _bitch_ ,” Hunk hisses, turning his head blindly towards the last place he heard Ezor. “You psychopath, cut him down!”

“Ooh, he’s clever!” Ezor squeals. “Just for that, I’ll give you a reward.”

The sticky strip is ripped abruptly off of his face, taking with it several eyelashes and a good portion of one eyebrow. Hunk squints past the reflexive tears, desperate to see, confirm that it’s not as bad as he thinks-

It is. It’s worse.

Just like he thought, his wrists are tethered to a rope that reaches up, through some tackle, and down again to the other side of the cell, ending around Lance’s neck. Every time the floor under Hunk’s feet drops, or Hunk pulls his arms down, Lance will be pulled a little higher by the noose around his neck. He’s already on his tiptoes.

But _Lance_ – Hunk can’t hold back the groan of distress. His best friend has his back to a pole, just like Hunk, but his arms are spread to either side of him, attached at the wrists and elbows to slim boards rigged up to yet more tackle so that they can tilt down if Lance lowers his arms. From the end of the boards dangle two lead weights. The boards keep Lance’s arms straight, but he’s holding them up, and it takes Hunk a minute of following complicated ropes and weights and counterweights to figure it out, but when he does the sick churning in his gut intensifies even further. They are so screwed. Lance’s arms are connected to a frankly _huge_ spear, and if he lowers them, it’ll stab Hunk right through the ribs.

“What do you think?” Ezor coos, rocking back and forth from her tiptoes to the backs of her heels. “Zethrid set this up just for you two! She’s so smart, isn’t she?”

Hunk runs his gaze across the setup one more time, and can’t help nodding miserably. “Yep. Yep, pretty smart,” he agrees morosely. This setup would have taken some seriously advanced spatial reasoning to even envision, and then engineering chops to rival his own to execute properly. If they weren’t, you know, evil and bent on torturing and killing all of them, he’d be tempted to ask Lotor’s former generals to join their team.

Ezor cackles. “You’re cute! Too bad we’re going to break you in itty bitty pieces.” She abruptly prances across the room to flit around behind Lance. “So, Red Paladin, ready to tell me how your team got out of the quintessence field? Or where Lotor is? I bet your arms are getting tired.”

“Nope, I could do this all day,” Lance shoots back immediately, despite the way his breath rasps against the noose around his neck. His gaze doesn’t leave the spear, even as Ezor dances in and out of his peripherals. If she keeps going with this, and Hunk ends up skewered, he can tell Lance will never forgive himself, even if blaming him would never, _never_ cross Hunk’s mind.

Ezor giggles, leaning over on one foot to reach another pair of weights. “Me too, honey. Me too.” She slips the weights onto the ropes around Lance’s arms. The clank as they drop to the bottom of the setup mirrors the lead settling in Hunk’s gut. Lance sucks in a labored breath, his eyes finding Hunk’s in terrified, silent apology. Hunk can see his arms shaking from across the room.

“It’s okay, Lance,” he manages, and it’s taking everything he has not to look at the spear, to keep his focus on Lance, but he does it for his friend. His brother. “We’re gonna be okay, man. I promise.”

“You two are so sweet,” Ezor interrupts. She leans on the lever, sending Hunk ratcheting down another notch. “It makes me wanna barf. Where is Lotor?”

Hunk’s starting to feel the stretch in his shoulders, now. He’s up on tiptoes, almost dangling, and he’s watching Lance choke and struggle not to drop the weights on his arms, and Hunk is starting to get _angry_.

“We told you already!” he snarls at Ezor. “We don’t know how we got out! Lotor is stuck in the quintessence field. He’s probably dead! That’s _all_ , that’s _it_ , now cut him down!”

“That’s not good enough!” Ezor screeches, darting forward to grab him by the throat. Up close, Hunk can see the fear lurking in her eyes. She’s terrified, he realizes. Terrified that if they got out, Lotor will too. That he’ll come for her and Zethrid. “You have to know! Is there a hole? A portal? A door? How did you get out?”

Behind her, there’s a new clank, followed by a broken sound from Lance. Ezor whirls around. The spear lurches closer as Lance _tries_ to yank his arms back up, but the setup is rigged so that once he lets his arms drop even a little, he can’t bring them back up again. Lance’s sob, dry and choked, and the clank of machinery are the only sounds in the cell for an interminable span of ticks until the spear slowly, finally, halts its forward journey. The tip brushes up against Hunk’s chest; he takes an experimental breath and feels cold metal poke through the fabric of his shirt.

“Ezor,” Lance whispers. “Ezor, we don’t know how we got out, _please_ , let Hunk go,”

“You know! You do! You got out somehow, tell me how!” Ezor interrupts. Her cheerful, cutesy facade has crumbled, leaving something desperate and feral in its aftermath. She slams the lever by Hunk, and the floor drops out from under him. He plummets to the end of his restraints, snapping taut with a jerk that yanks his shoulder out of its socket. It _hurts_ , and he screams, throwing his head back against the pole, but against the pain, against the fire in his ligaments and tendons, he wrenches his eyes open, needing to see, to know-

Lance _dangles_ , suspended by the cruel noose digging into his neck. His feet twitch spasmodically, in terrible, disjointed counterpoint to his desperate, ineffective wheezing for air which will not come. The spear inches closer as his arms, starved of the oxygen necessary for their operation, drag downwards. Its trajectory is unchanged despite Hunk’s new position, and instead of his heart the tip digs into the space where his shoulder is dislocated, slow and cold but then hot, too hot. Hunk’s nerves scream - _no, that’s his voice, he’s screaming again_ \- and Lance is watching it all, helpless, unable to keep his arms aloft anymore even as he hangs. Somewhere, Ezor is yelling, still trying to wring information from them. Hunk wishes he could reassure his friend, tell Lance that none of this is his fault, but the pain and the screaming - _oh, that’s why his throat is rough, he’s still screaming_ \- kind of make speaking an impossibility.

There’s a sudden lurch, and the tip of the spear pierces the other side of his shoulder to lodge in the wood behind his back. He can feel the wide edges grating against the bone of his shoulder socket and the ball of the joint, sending screeling tines of fire up his arm and into his neck and down his spine. He blinks the tears away, looking for Lance - he’s gone still, dangling passively by his neck, a limp and boneless ornament upon Zethrid’s macabre device.

Stillness and quiet have never become Lance.

Beyond the torture, beyond the pain, it’s this, somehow, that drives Hunk over the edge. He grabs the pole behind his wrists, taking the pressure off the ropes binding him, and tears the thick strands apart. He yanks the spear out of his shoulder with his good arm as he drops to the floor, zeroing in on Ezor. She stumbles back, her jaw dropping even as she reaches for the daggers in her boots. Hunk doesn’t give her a chance to find her footing. He charges, bellowing wordlessly in rage and in pain, and bats aside her first attack. She flips around, dodging and ducking, but Hunk is relentless and fueled by an anger which is all the more potent for how rarely it takes him over. The heavy haft of the spear cracks across her forearm, numbing the limb and sending one of her daggers skating across the floor. Ezor kicks out at him, driving him back a step and gaining the space to run up the wall and flip over his head to land behind him. Hunk is already whirled around to face him by the time she lands, waiting with the spear braced firmly. Ezor twists midair and manages a graceless landing, clutching the deep gash in her side that almost disemboweled her. Hunk growls, readjusting his grip on the spear. So close. He’s never been taken over by anger, by _bloodlust_ , like this, but it’s empowering. He could do anything, he thinks. Anything that he wants is within his grasp, and all he wants is Ezor’s death.

Ezor sees it. Without another word she flees, trailing blood and fear. The door slams behind her, just in time to block the spear Hunk hurls after her. It clatters to the floor, leaving silence in its wake.

Hunk shudders as he stumbles, caught in the receding tide of adrenaline. He follows it, uses it to get across the room to Lance. With half the device no longer functional, it’s the work of moments to get Lance down, but that’s just the beginning. The noose has dug into his neck, still strangling him even after the pressure of Lance’s weight is removed. Hunk grabs Ezor’s abandoned dagger and cuts it loose, wincing in sympathy as he peels the coarse fibers out of the bleeding grooves they’ve cut into Lance’s flesh.

“Lance,” he croaks. “Lance, my man, wake up. C’mon, open your eyes for me.” He leans over Lance’s head in his lap, listening for any hint of breathing. For a long moment, stretched thin by despair and hope in equal measure, Lance is utterly unmoving.

“ _Lance_ ,” Hunk’s voice cracks. “Lance, _please_ , man, you gotta wake up!”

He rubs Lance’s sternum vigorously with the knuckles of his good hand, wishing he could manage CPR. But his shoulder is still out of its socket, hanging limp and leaking blood sluggishly from the hole the spear left in him, and he has never felt more useless.

Lance breathes.

And chokes, coughing and gagging against his damaged throat. Hunk sobs and eases him onto his side, shifting to rub Lance’s back.

“Oh, man, Lance,” he cries. “Oh, man, you had me really scared there for a minute. Never do that again, okay? No more dying on me!”

Lance shudders. “Hnnk…” His hand creeps upward, fingers scrabbling toward Hunk’s shoulder. “Yr… rrm…”

“I’m okay,” Hunk says. He’s really not, but that’s not what Lance needs to hear. “We’ve got the pod in Black. We’re both gonna be okay, man.”

“’m srry,” Lance whispers.

“Stop it,” Hunk squashes that right away. “Stop it, Lance, it wasn’t your fault. It was Ezor and Zethrid.” He tangles Lance’s seeking hand in his own, bringing them down to rest on Lance’s chest. “Just breathe, man. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Kay,” Lance rasps.

After a few minutes, he shifts, gathering his legs under him, and Hunk eases him up. Lance squinches his eyes shut against what’s probably a fierce headache, but stands up, leaning on the wall. Hunk pushes himself to his feet and cracks a smile for Lance.

“Ready to get out of here?” he asks.

Lance nods, then winces.

There’s a clatter in the corridor, and the rest of the paladins spill into the room in a rush of sound and frenzy. The rest of their escape is a blur, but Hunk remembers the bright, soundless flares of the explosions across Zethrid and Ezor’s ship as they flee, and he remembers the hot satisfaction that comes with the sight. It warms him through his cold stint in the cryopod, and through the wait as Lance takes his turn. And later, when he sleeps and the dreams come to torment him with  _what if_ , it's enough to bolster his waking, until he can open a channel to Lance's lion and drive out the memories and the dreams with the steady, even rhythm of Lance,  _alive_. 

**Author's Note:**

> I squee on [tumblr](https://cuivienengazer.tumblr.com) on occasion. I still have squares open!


End file.
